% '.^-"m^- V 






^^ 



V A-- 






" .N^^ 



- <» NX, 



• N 









v^^ 



0^ .^^% °. 



t.-o'^ 












^0^ 










^ .^P' 









.*^ 





'-^-0^ 






V^ 





o V 



•n^o^ 









0.*^ -' V '- 






•<t^ -o , » « 






.^ 



%• 



'^ -A' 






^O 





















•^ 










'^ 



.V^ 







o 



vP b 



<J> * o « o 



V, 












.^* 



4 O 







:^^ 






. v^ 



.p -3 i^ri. ' ■ '^'X 



O' 










>;: 



y-S - 1 ....... j^ <^ 






o 



o 



■^ 

o 



\V 






')' 



^-^ ' • . 5 , 



<r. 



->. 



■^-0^ 



-^^.^x 






'■■ :li^^ -^ 



'^0 



>*^^x. 






^-:p. 



.Ovv 



' .0' 






•p s 



-> 



'^^ 



2ri)e blessed memotB of tlje just. 



A 



DISCOURSE 



OCCASIONED BY THE DEATH OF 



JAREDSPARKS, LL.D 



DELIVERED MARCH 18, 1866, 



BEFORE THE FIRST PARISH IN CAMBRIDGE, 



WILLIAM NEWELL, 

MINISTEK OF THE FIRST CHURCH IN CAMBRIDGE. 



CAMBRIDGE: 
SEVER AND FRANCIS, 

BOOKSELLERS TO THE UNIVERSITY. 

1866. 



.5 



University Press : Welch, Bigelow, & Co., 
Cambridge. 






SERMON. 



"The memory of the just is blessed." — Proverbs x. 7. 

One of the most precious of God's gifts is the 
society of affectionate and virtuous friends. To live 
under the same roof, to share the same duties and 
pleasures, with those whom we can love with all the 
heart, — to feel the gentle influence of their virtues, 
shining around them with a mild, perpetual light, — 
to breathe the atmosphere of their lives, to enjoy 
the sweetness of their daily sympathy and support, 

— to be able to go for counsel and wisdom, for cour- 
age and patience, to minds into which we can pour 
out our hopes, fears, and doubts with entire freedom 
and trust, — to double and prolong our enjoyments 
by communicating them to others, to whom we 
are bound, not only by ties of kindred, but by the 
holier and stronger bonds of affection and respect, 

— to allay our anxieties and griefs by the thought 
that they are at our side, that they feel for us and 
with us, and that, whatever may betide, their counte- 
nances will beam benignantly on our way, — to have 
our good purposes quickened, our good principles 
invigorated, and the whole inner being softened and 



purified by intimate communion with the living ex- 
amples of Christian goodness and piety, — who can 
fully estimate these blessings ? A world, were it ours, 
would cheaply purchase, if a world could buy, the 
tender and thoughtful affection, the kind attentions, 
the cordial aid, the disinterested advice, the wise and 
pleasant conversation, of the dear companion, par- 
ent, kinsman, friend, the honored and the loved, in 
those favored families where the lives of the right- 
eous are still spared to gladden and to bless the lofty 
or the lowly dwelling in which the providence of 
God has placed them. But those lives are held by 
an uncertain tenure. Over them, as over all, hangs 
the suspended sword. Over them, as over all, is 
written the inexorable, yet hiddenly beneficent law. 
Believing, as we do, in a Father God, believing that 
he has mad6 the universe in perfect wisdom, and 
that all the parts of His administration, and all the 
events of our existence are in unison with the Infi- 
nite Benevolence that constitutes the essential glory 
of His nature, we feel that there are wise and kind 
purposes to be answered by death, which death only 
can accomplish. Sometimes it is attended with 
mysteries of pain, suffering, and apparently irrepara- 
ble loss to the survivors, both in temporal and spir- 
itual good, which we must wait for the revelations of 
another life to explain. But these exceptional cases 
must not shake our faith in truths written on the 
universe, and proclaimed to us by the messengers of 
the Most High. As Christians, we believe that all 
the events of our being are ordered and overruled 



by divine wisdom and love ; as Christians, we believe 
that death to the good is the greatest of blessings, — 
the portal of Heaven, the change which brings them 
into near and blissful communion with Christ and 
with God. A more living life is theirs in the spirit 
world ; nor is their life on eartl^ wholly ended when 
they cease to breathe. Their memory still dwells 
with a beneficent power in the places which they 
once gladdened with their presence, and in the minds 
with which they once took sweet counsel in the hal- 
lowed connections of a happy and religious home. 
Thus they continue to guide and to bless us, long 
after their mortal forms have been buried in the 
dust. They live in the hearts of their kindred. They 
rise again in the hour of musing to the eyes of 
mourning affection. They speak to us in accents 
unheard by the world, but known and felt as theirs 
in the silent depths of the soul. 

The memory of the just, of the wise, of the truly 
good, of the truly great, of the servants of Christ 
and the benefactors of men, has its place among the 
blessed influences by which the Spirit of God lifts us 
to a higher plane of feeling and action, and gives a 
quickening strength to our sometimes dim faith in 
the realities of the life to come. It rebukes the 
sad scepticism that hangs over the tomb, and sees 
only the pale corpse, the shell of the flown spirit, 
but cannot see the glory and the beauty beyond. 
When the stunning blow that separates us from the 
objects of our affection first falls upon us, when that 
countenance which has long brightened our way is 



stamped with the stillness of death, it is hard to re- 
alize that the soul which once beamed through the 
eye, and spoke from the lips, is still living and con- 
scious and happy, though the light of that eye is 
quenched, and the accents of those lips hushed for- 
ever. But as we look back from a distance of time, 
and view the pageantry and circumstances of death 
in their true light, we are able to discern more clear- 
ly the sublime truth, over which they have thrown 
a momentary cloud. Then the bright image of the 
departed rises up before us, and we hear a voice, 
saying, as Christ to the doubting disciple, " Be not 
faithless, but. believing." Has it perished forever, 
that noble mind, stamped with God's image, trained 
for God's service ? Are those kind and tender af- 
fections, that diffused comfort and joy around them, 
those "thoughts that wander through eternity," 
those angelic aspirations and hopes that ally man to 
his Maker, those high capacities that on earth are 
but half developed, half satisfied, — are all extin- 
guished forever, buried in the dust ? Is there no 
other sphere in which they may yet live and grow ? " 
We cannot believe it. Our reason and our afFectionSj 
the whispers of hope and the instinctive cravings of 
our nature, re-echo the good tidings of the Gospel, 
and both welcome and confirm its message of the 
soul's immortal life. And never do we feel so pow- 
erfully the assurance of this truth, as when we recall 
the remembrance of the gifted and the good, taken 
from us in the ripening promise of youth, in the 
more extended usefulness of manhood, or in the 



venerable wisdom and mellowed virtues of declining 
age.* 

The memory of the dead not only quickens our 
faith in the future world, but it leads our thoughts 
and our affections heavenward. Our hearts over- 
leap the chasm that divides us from the world of 
spirits, and go in quest of their missing objects. We 
cannot forget them, even amidst all the crowding 
cares and dizzy excitements of the most busy life, — 
nor have we any reason to suppose that they will 
forget us. When we think of them, therefore, we 
see them waiting for us, as it were, watching anx- 
iously over our steps, praying for our welfare, invit- 

* I cannot help adding here the coincident expression, at a meeting of 
the Massachusetts Historical Society, commemorative of Mr. Sparks, by 
his friend, Professor Parsons, of the same thought, which " pressed upon 
me," he says, " during the days and evenings when I sat by the bedside 
where he was dying. There lay a man who had been gifted with excel- 
lent qualities, and these, during a long and busy life, were disciplined, 
cultivated, invigorated to the last of that life. Can a rational man be- 
lieve that all this long progress was towards — nothingness. His wisdom 
and his goodness were the means of usefulness and of happiness to him- 
self and to others. Through all those many years they grew and accu- 
mulated. Is it rational to believe that all this growth and accumulation 
were only for their own extinction ? I refer not now to religious faith. 
I appeal only to reasonableness and probability. His unusually long life 
was far more than commonly useful and happy. But it was also, if 
judged by any test we can apply, a constant preparation for more useful- 
ness and more happiness. What is there in the universe, or in its facts, 
or in its laws, which justifies the belief that all this long continued and 
ever advancing preparation was for — no end ? — I am sure, and I have 
reason to be sure that my dear friend would not himself have thought so. 
And I believe he would regard it as the crowning usefulness of his long 
and useful life, if the thought of him should suggest to any mind, or con- 
firm in any mind, the great truth, that Death is but a step forward in 
life." 



8 



ing us to the path which leads upward to their own, 
and urging us to perseverance in well-doing. Heav- 
en itself becomes more attractive, when we thus 
associate with its pleasures and its scenes of duty 
the images of those whom we have ali'eady loved 
upon earth. 

Then. too. the memory of the virtuous dead is 
blessed in the moi^al influence which it exerts over 
the heart and the life, quickening and strengthen- 
ing all that is good. And this it does not only b}'^ 
remindinor us of the uncertainties of life, bv showinsr 
us its true value and its noblest ends, and by pro- 
ducing a religious seriousness of feeling, but by 
keeping before us bright examples of high excel- 
lence ; and examples, too, to which personal affec- 
tion adds a quickening power. The life even of a 
good man whom we never saw wins us to the love 
and the following of the virtues that were beauti- 
fully manifested in Ms character, — how much more 
the pure lives of those whom we have ourselves 
known, and with whom we have had daily and sweet 
communion, and whose presence has been as sun- 
hght to our path I As we call back their departed 
forms, we see them in a more radiant aspect, — their 
goodness clothed with a heavenly lustre, and their 
infiiTuities disappearing in the distance, in that ten- 
der light which death throws over the venerated 
and the loved. We cannot think of them without 
being made better. 

Yes. the memory of the just is indeed blessed. 
Though for a time it may awaken a painful sorrow. 



not to be entirely subdued even by the power of 
religious faith, it will at length become, what it is 
designed to be, a means of spiritual improvement, 
a source of consolation, and a strengthener of 
Christian faith and hope; it will turn our affec- 
tions towards God and Heaven ; it will inspire us 
with holy purposes ; it will check the spirit of 
worldliness, and keep before us the higher ends of 
our existence ; it will tend to create or to quicken in 
our own souls the virtues that have made both our 
loss and our consolations so- great ; it will give fresh 
life to the hope of immortality, and prepare us for 
the unseen world, of which it so loudly speaks. So 
may it be, fellow-Christians, with the memory of 
every follower of the Lord, whose goodness, un- 
known perhaps to the world, and now forgotten 
by fame, still dwells shrined in the secret recesses 
of the fond kinsman's heart. So shall it be with 
the memory of that true disciple of Jesus, who, his 
earthly Sabbaths being ended, is now rejoicing in 
the rest and glory of Heaven. 

Ever blessed to his family and friends (and no 
enemy in the wide world had he, none knew him 
but to love him) will be the memory of that ex- 
cellent and eminent man, our fellow-worshipper for 
many years, who has just passed on into the spirit- 
world. Death has set his sanctifying seal on his 
character and his work, and neither will be soon 
forgotten. The remembrance of his life's labors is 
bound up with the history of our Washington and 
the history of the country of which we fondly call 



10 



Washington the Father, — now twice saved, with the 
promise that the bright dawn will be followed by 
a yet brighter noon, shining more and more unto 
the perfect day. 

The name of Jared. Sparks stands among the 
well-known and honored names that adorn our 
American literature and have acquired a European 
fame. No more devoted pioneer and explorer, none 
so full-sheaved a worker in his special department 
of the field of letters, can be found among the liv- 
ing or the dead of our .country. And to none do 
we owe so much as to him for the assiduous care 
and industry, the sound judgment, and the wise 
discrimination with which he has collected materials 
for a full understanding of the men and the times to 
which his inquiries were directed. 

He was born in Willington, Conn., May 10, 1789. 
Like so many of our most distinguished men, he had 
to contend with straitened circumstances in early 
life, and under the discipline of privation and diffi- 
culty won strength for a richer success. His boy- 
hood and youth were employed in the common 
work of a farm and in mechanical labor. But he 
had an intense thirst for learning, and gave all his 
spare time to reading and study. The scanty in- 
struction of the district schools in his native town 
served only to a\faken, not to satisfy, his mental 
cravings, and he seized every opportunity of intel- 
lectual culture.'" His uncommon attainments and 

* It is said that he shingled the roof of a minister's house in Willington, 
in return for instruction in Latin. 



11 



ardent desire of knowledge attracted the attention 
of the neighborhood, and by the kindness of friends, 
who became interested in him and saw his youth- 
ful promise, he was sent to the Academy in Exeter, 
N. H., making his way thither on foot, the Rev. 
Abiel Abbott, of Coventry, carrying his trunk for 
him swung under his chaise. Diligently using his 
new opportunities, he was in due time prepared for 
College, and entered Harvard University in 1811, 
under President Kirkland, of whom he was a special 
favorite, and for whom he always entertained the 
highest reverence and the most grateful and aftec- 
tionate reg-ard. Thouo;h he was on the whole of a 
strong constitution, active and vigorous in his hab- 
its, and capable of great physical exertion, he seems 
to have been subject to occasional turns of sickness, 
and to moods of depression. In consequence partly 
of ill health, partly of his poverty, he was but a little 
more than two whole years in college, and that, with 
this disadvantage, he should have graduated as he 
did, was a proof of his great ability, as well as of the 
confidence and respect in which he was held by the 
officers of the College. In his Sophomore year he 
was teacher in a private family at Havre de Grace, 
in Maryland ; was there when the town was burnt 
by the British troops under Admiral Cockburn in 
May, 1813, and was called out with the militia for 
the defence of the place.* At the close of his en- 

* Soon after his arrival at Havre de Grace, while he was staying at 
the public house in that place, in a dejected state of mind, occasioned 
by some disappointment of his expectations and the loneliness of his sit- 



12 



gagement as a teacher he returned to Cambridge, 
and graduated with honor in 1815. The two fol- 
lowing years were spent in teaching a private school 
at Lancaster in this State.* 

nation, among people of a quite different spirit and training from his 
own, two gentlemen, travellers on their way to Washington, came to 
the inn. A beautiful island in the Susquehanna attracted their atten- 
tion, and one of them procured a boat, and invited Mr. Sparks, whom 
they had met on the piazza, a stranger to them both, to accompany him 
to the place. After a delightful excursion, and a walk around the island 
intensely enjoyed by Mr. Sparks in the pleasant society and conversa- 
tion of the new-comer, who treated him with double cordiality on finding 
that the young man was a student of Harvard, as he was himself a grad- 
uate of the College, the Hon. Josiah Quincy, then Representative in 
Congress, as the stranger proved to be, returned to the inn, and intro-^ 
duced Mr. Sparks to his companion, the Rev. Dr. Channing. The inter- 
view gave the forlorn and struggling student new life and spirit. Dr. 
Channing, who had himself had a similar experience in teaching in Vir- 
ginia, refreshed and strengthened him by words of sympathy, counsel, 
and good cheer. And his new friends were his warm friends ever after. 
— The imagination dwells with interest on the picture of this first meet- 
ing of his, at the Southern inn on the road to Baltimore and Washington, 
with those two distinguished men, little dreaming of the after events 
which were to connect them so intimately with the youthful scholar, the 
one as the famous preacher of his ordination sermon, the other as his 
predecessor in the Presidency of Harvard University, as well as his 
neighbor and associate for many years in Cambridge, where Mr. Sparks 
lived and died in the street called by the name of his honored friend. 

* He cultivated in this preparatory sphere of service the habits of 
steady and methodical industry which distinguished him through life. 
Soon after commencing his school, he writes : " I board at Major Carter's, 
a mile and a quarter from my school, to and from which I walk twice a 
day. I rose this morning an hour before suni'ise, and rode five or six 
miles before breakfast, — an exercise which I shall continue regularly. 
My school occupies six hours ; and I have resolved to devote, and thus 
far have devoted, six hours out of the twenty-four to study." And be- 
fore this he has a memorandum of his walking from Cambridge to Bolton, 
twenty-six miles, setting out at half past one P. M., and arriving at 
Bolton at eight in the evening. 



13 



In 1817 he was chosen Tutor in Mathematics and 
Natural Philosophy in Harvard University. Here he 
soon after commenced the study of divinity. He 
was at the same time one of an association for con- 
ducting the North American Review, which had been 
started two years before. In 1819 he was ordained 
as Pastor of the First Independent Church in Balti- 
more. It was on this occasion that Dr. Channing 
preached the powerful and famous sermon that cre- 
ated so much interest and excitement at the time, 
and gave a fresh impulse to the Unitarian contro- 
versy, ending, as you know, in the disruption, as in 
Cambridge, of many churches, and the drawing of 
the lines of sectarian distinction more sharply be- 
tween the Orthodox, so called, and the Liberal 
Churches of this country. He remained four years 
at Baltimore, performing, in addition to the common 
labors of his profession, in an arduous and important 
position, a large amount of theological and literary 
labor, in the editorship of the Unitarian Miscellany, 
and in controversial publications, called forth by the 
necessity of maintaining and defending the religious 
views which he had espoused. 

It was during his ministry at Baltimore, in 1821, 
that he was elected Chaplain to Congress ; a tribute 
to his rising worth which, on account of his Unita- 
rian faith, excited the ire and alarm of the zealots 
of the time. The clergyman of an Episcopal church 
in Washington, on the Sunday following the elec- 
tion, said to his congregation : " By a recent vote of 
a majority of one branch of our National Legislature, 



14 



they have proclaimed to the worlc". in language as 
loud as thev can speak, that 'thev will not have 
Christ to rule over them.' One of the members in 
the minority, after the vote was taken, with deep 
regret observed, ' "We have voted Christ out of the 
house.' In looking to the future, what have we not 
reason to apprehend, when the rulers take counsel 
together against the Lord and against his anointed?" 
In the year following his ordination, he published 
a volume entitled '' Letters on the Ministry, Ritual, 
and Doctrine of the Protestant Episcopal Church";* 
and in 1823, "An Inquiry' into the Comparative 
Moral Tendency of Trinitarian and Unitarian Doc- 
trines.'' In 1822, he planned and commenced the 
publication of " A Collection of Essays and Tracts 
in Theology,*' from various authors, such as Newton, 

* In an able re%-iew of this work, in the Christian Examiner for July, 
1820, the writer says: •• The work of Mr. Sparks is the best which has 
appeared, since the time of Chaimcy, on the Episcopal controversy. He 
had the advantage over Dr. ^liUer in not writing in Presbyterian fett«rs, 
and in possessing a learning possibly not so various, (for he is a much 
younger msm.) but far better digested, more systematic and accurate. 
The cause of letters owes much to this gentleman, and. if it had not sur- 
rendered him to higher claims, would yet hope much more. In his 
removal, the University resigned a member on whose reputation and 
services it set a high value, and it was felt like the loss of a distinguished 
freeman to the literary republic of the East Under his direction the 
North American Review made great progress towards that reputation 
which has enabled it at last (iu conjunction with other publications to the 
same end) to lower the tone of our Transatlantic traducers, and to give 
itself no mean proof of the intellectual advances which it vindicates. 
From this flattering path to a wide reputation, and from the pursuit of 
favorite studies, he hesitated not to withdraw himself to the ser^-ice of re- 
ligion, and went, with, to say the least, no elating prospects, to preach in 
a new field the doctrines of uncorrupt Christianity." 



15 



Whitby, Emlyn, Clark, Lardner, Chillingworth, and 
others, eminent for their talents, learning, and vir- 
tues, with biographical and critical notices. This 
extended to six volumes, the last of which was pub- 
lished in 1826. In 1823, after four years of work in 
the ministry, on account of impaired health and 
for various reasons satisfactory to himself, he re- 
signed his pastoral charge. In his letter of resigna- 
tion he says : " The religious views by which you 
are characterized, I believe to be the truths of 
Heaven, as revealed and proclaimed to the world by 
the Son of God. To me they aftbrd the choice'st 
solace in life, and to my mind they are fraught with 
the most consoling and encouraging hopes which a 
mortal can carry with him to the presence of his 
righteous Judge ; and my prayer is, that I may 
never be weary in using such powers and influence 
as I may possess to difiuse religious sentiments, 
which I deem so honorable to God, and so salutary 
to men." The feeling which he thus expressed 
never faltered or changed. Among the new scenes 
and pursuits on which he afterwards entered, he ever 
maintained his warm interest in the advancement of 
the doctrines of the Unitarian faith. Always mild, 
candid, and tolerant, he was yet most earnest in his 
desire and effort to spread the views which he 
deemed most " honorable to God, and salutary to 
men." 

After his retireitient from the ministry and his 
return to Massachusetts, he was for seven years pro- 
prietor and editor of the North American Review 



16 



In 1828 he published, from original materials, an 
interesting life of "John Ledyard, the American 
Traveller." Some years before this, in the course 
of inquiries undertaken for a friend connected with 
the University Press, he had conceived the plan of 
preparing a full and authentic life of Washington, 
and of collecting from all sources, at home and 
abroad, the correspondence of that great man, and 
the official and private documents that might throw 
light on his public career and the history of his 
times. In preparation for this work, on which he 
spent ten years of his life, he made extensive re- 
searches in various parts of our own country, and 
then went to Europe and employed a year in exam- 
ining the public offices in London and Paris, and 
taking copies of all important papers bearing on his 
subject. He was received with much courtesy and 
consideration, and through the kindness and friend- 
ship of the French Minister, Guizot, as well as of the 
English officials, he found unexpected facilities for the 
accomplishment of his enterprise. The first fruits of 
his labors appeared in 1829-30, in the "Diplomatic 
Correspondence of the American Revolution," a work 
in twelve volumes octavo, followed, two years after, 
by the " Life of Gouverneur Morris, with Selections 
from his Correspondence and Miscellaneous Papers," 
in three volumes octavo. " The American Almanac," 
a work of great value and various information, was 
also originated, and its first volume, for 1830, edited 
by him. He also became editor of the " Library of 
American Biography," of which two series were pub- 



17 



lished, comprising twenty-five volumes in all, be- 
tween the years 1834 and 1848, and for which sev- 
eral of the biographies, such as those of Benedict 
Arnold, Father Marquette, Count Pulaski, Charles 
Lee, Ethan Allen, and others, were, prepared by his 
own indefatigable pen. Thus, in the midst of the 
execution of his great and specially chosen work, he 
was carrying on with admirable diligence other lit- 
erary labors of much interest and value. In 1834, 
and the three years following, he gave to the world 
his "Life and Writings of Washington," in twelve 
octavo volumes, — a work which will ever claim the 
gratitude of all who love their country and revere 
the memory of the wise and noble man who did so 
much to secure its independence, and to lay the 
foundations deep and strong of our national union 
and greatness. 

In 1840, he completed the publication of " The 
Works of Benjamin Franklin, with Notes, and a Life 
of the Author," containing much before unpublished 
or uncollected matter, in ten octavo volumes. He 
soon after made a second journey to Europe, and, in 
his renewed researches among the French archives, 
discovered the map with the red line marked upon it, 
concerning which, and the use made of it in settling 
the question of the Northeastern Boundary in 1842, 
there was so much debate, both in this country and 
in England. In 1854 appeared " Correspondence of 
the American Revolution, being Letters of eminent 
Men to George Washington, from the Time of his 
taking Command of the Army to the End of his Pres- 

3 



18 



idency, edited from the Original Manuscripts." This 
was the last of the important and interesting works, 
illustrative of American history, which we owe to 
the patriotic zeal, the patient industry and research 
of Mr. Sparks. He had previously, however, in 1852, 
in reply to the strictures of Lord Mahon and others 
on his mode of editing the writings of Washington, 
printed two pamphlets, fully vindicating his course, 
and showing that the only important criticisms were 
wholly unfounded and unjust. I need not speak, to 
those who are acquainted with his writings, of th^ 
thoroughness, carefulness, candor, and discrimination 
by which they are marked, and their clear, exact, and 
simple style, reflecting the qualities of his mind and 
heart. No finer examples can be found of patient 
research and conscientious devotion to historic truth. 

The brief survey which I have thus given of his 
literary labors and their abundant fruits, amounting 
to nearly a hundred volumes, a library in themselves, 
is enough to show, without any added words of 
mine, what an enterprising and indefatigable worker 
he has been ; and what an amount of service in his 
chosen and providential sphere he accomplished in 
his meridian strength and zeal, so quiet, yet so per- 
sistent and effective. Few have done so much as he, 
and so well. 

When to all this we add his academical engage- 
ments and lectures, the duties of the Professorship 
to which, in 1839, he was chosen, the Professor- 
ship of Ancient and Modern History, — an office 
which he held for ten years, until, in 1849, he was 



19 



elected President of the University which he had 
loved and served, the worthy successor of Kirkland. 
Quincy, and Everett, respected and beloved by offi- 
cers and students, — we may well admire and honor 
the fruitful industry of his well-spent life. An acci- 
dent, which for a time crippled his arm and disabled 
him for the accustomed use of his pen, about fifteen 
years since, interrupted and finally prevented the 
execution of a design which he had matured, and 
for which he had made large preparation, of writ- 
ing the Foreign Diplomatic History of our American 
Eevolution/^ But he never murmured. He bore 
the disappointment with a serene submission, a calm 
piety and patience, as admirable as the activity and 
energy with which he had labored in full health 
and strength. 

The memory of his virtues will forever abide with 
his friends, shining in their souls with a soft and 
pleasant light : and so he will continue to serve and 
to bless them in death, as he served and blessed them 
in life. Those who knew him best loved him most. 
"In simplicity and godly sincerity, not with fleshly 
wisdom, but by the grace of God," he had his " con- 

* It was his orifjinal intention to write a history of the American Rev- 

^^!<iilV N <i ril |l ^l li »i '»M ^ <| i% li" lia^l in '"^ collection of manuscripts, 
gathered in this country and in Europe, very rich and abundant materi- 
als for such a work, most carefully and methodically arranged and bound 
up in volumes. These, bequeathed by his will to his son, ultimately to 
revert to the College Library, it has been concluded to deposit for safe- 
keeping in the Library, as soon as the necessary arrangements can be 
made. 



20 



versation in the world." The nearer you came to 
him, the stronger the attraction of his pure and true 
spirit. His was a somewhat reserved, restrained, 
undemonstrative nature. He made no show ; he felt 
often more than he expressed. Under the influence 
of a physical depression to which he was subject, he 
was sometimes sad and silent. But underneath, 
there beat the tenderest heart, the kindest affec- 
tions, the warmest generosity, ready at every call to 
pour out its gifts. His character was built on the 
granite base of Truth, Simplicity, Rectitude, like his 
own Washington's. In some respects, he resembled 
that great and good man : his own spirit was natu- 
rally attuned to the character which he had under- 
taken to portray, and found not only delight, but 
added strength, and a kindred tone of thought and 
feeling, communicated, perhaps unconsciously to him- 
self, in the carrying on of his first great and gladly 
chosen work. His aims from the beginning were 
high and generous ; no low, narrow, self-indulgent 
views tainted his heart or life. But those who knew 
him from his youth, and knew him best, saw that 
there was in him, beyond the common strain, some- 
thing large and heroic, ftarly in life, he had con- 

out his project; if circumstancejk*»tf»^<^of8d/'4f§ 
would have been a Ledyard, or a Livingstone, as 
daring, as persistent, as they. But God had other 
work for him to do, and he has done it, we all know 
how well, — done more than any other man among 



21 



us for the historical Hterature of our. country : — the 
first real, thorough student in this department, giv- 
ing the first complete example of the fulness and 
accuracy of res^j^ch and exploration of authentic 
documents and accumulation of materials and per- 
sonal preparation in many ways for the work. 

"Blessed," says the Scripture, " is the memory of 
the just " : of the just. In the narrower, as well as in 
the larger sense, does the word apply to our honored 
friend. He was thoroughly just, upright, conscien- 
tious in his dealings ; fair, candid, equitable in his 
judgments ; never willingly, never consciously, I am 
sure, doing wrong by word or act, with pen or tongue, 
to any man. He was transparently truthful, artless,* 
and sincere ; with a mingled simplicity and unassum- 
ing dignity, a blended suavity and quiet reserve, that 
were very winning. And he was as sweet-tempered 
as he was truthful ; as gracious and benevolent as 
he was just; kind, cordial, tender-hearted, full of 
mercy and good works. No one ever went to him 
in vain for help. Perhaps he was in danger, some- 
times, of being over-charitable, over-generous, giving 

* The testimony of his classmate and life-long friend, Prof. Parsons, in 
his tribute before the Historical Society, to the memory of their late 
Vice-President, well expresses Xrhat alKwho knew him, felt : " I have not 
known and I cannot imagine a man more absolutely devoid of vanity or 
affectation. He valued the good opinion of good men, as evidence that 
he had succeeded in his efforts to be and to do what such men approve, 
and that what he had done for others would be acceptable and useful. 
But in the half-century of our acquaintance, I have never witnessed 
an act, a look, a word, which indicated even the thought of seeming 
other than he was, — of winning even momentary approbation by mere 
seeming." 



m 



22 



to the asker beyond the asker's claim. Many a poor 
man, many a poor woman in this neighborhood, will 
feel the loss of his pleasant word, his bountiful purse, 
ever open, as in his College Presi^lcy to the young 
men who needed, as he himself once needed, the 
helping hand, so to all whom he had opportunity to 
succor and serve. 

Fully did he, if any man, meet the requirement 
announced by the prophet of old, saying to his 
people, still saying by the spirit to us all, " He hath 
showed thee, man, what is good ; and whut doth 
the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and 
love mercy, and walk humbly with thy God ? " 

He walked humbly with his God, as he walked 
modestly and lovingly with man. He was truly, 
unaffectedly devout, of a deeply reverent spirit; 
in his views of Scripture and of Christ adhering 
to the school of Channing and Ware ; disliking and 
dreading the innovations and radicalism of the day, 
as well as the false reaction in an opposite direction, 
but ever steadfastly manifesting his profound relig- 
iousness of mind in outward ordinances, in con- 
stant attendance, morning and afternoon, at the 
sanctuary, in the whole tone of his speech, in the 
whole tenor of his life ; he was, in short, a true 
disciple of Christ, both in love to man, and in love 
to God. 

What he was in his family,* how gentle, affec- 

* Mr. Sparks was mamed on the 16th of October, 1832, to Miss Frances 
Anne Allen of Hyde Park, New York. Her death in 1835, and subse- 
quently that of their only child, a daughter of fine promise, at the age of 



•23 



tionate, thoughtful, sympathizing, how devoted in 
his parental care, how watchful for the best interests 
of each and all, they best know who miss the hus- 
band and the father's love. 

Sadly shall we too miss him from his accustomed 
place in this temple of the Lord. It was good to 
see and to meet here one whom we all honored, and 
to join with him in our Sabbath worship. And yet 
we feel that we have no right to mourn over so 
peaceful and happy an end, coming in the course of 
nature, in the ripe fulness of time, to a clear mind 
and a body not yet shattered by age. He had 
reached the perilous, doubtful limit beyond which 
the prospect for this life grows ever more dim ; he 
has passed away, as he himself would have wished, 
by a brief and gentle summons ; * his work on earth 
was done and waited only for the Master's "Well 
done ! " and he has fallen asleep in Christ that he may 
awake to a brighter morn and an immortal youth. 
" Thanks be to God, who giveth us the victory 
through our Lord Jesus Christ." 

twelve, were among the few shadows that fell on a life otherwise pros- 
pered and happy. He was again married, on the 21st of May, 1839, to 
Miss Mary C. Silsbee, a daughter of Hon. Nathaniel Silsbee of Salem, a 
wealthy and honored merchant, our Senator in Congress. Four chil- 
dren, a son, now in College, and three daughters, survive to mourn with 
their mother the loss of one whose domestic virtues and rare sweetness, 
purity and simplicity of character, were the light of his favored home. 

* Mr. Sparks died at his residence in Cambridge on the 14th of March, 
after a week's illness, of pneumonia, attended with but little suffering, at 
the age of seventy-six years and ten months. 



A 



^l^b ?D 



^>^^ 










,^ :.^%^r> t^ J' *"■: 

r . ' ^,, (.... //). -^ .V o ,- 



•^o 



•^-0^ 

.-^q^. 



^^ 



c 



d- -^ r 



<:- 



V/M 



<' 









-7 









/ . ^ ' ° ' O. 



°o 



.V 



-7 



•v > •-'> 



0^ \ 



\/-- 



>^\., 






'' '> ^ v^ 















» '^ 












"j;:^^^- -, 



•y 



o V 









V .- 












"^. 









,\' 



^. 






:^i^^ .0^ 












'^o' 



^•n^. v^: 












% ■ 



.V , o - « , "^ . 






O^ * a „ o 



•r '. 



-^ 



'V- 



.0^ .■ 



./"^ 



'^t 



s -r . 






•!,'°' 



*>. 



"^ 






j/J^ o ° " " -. ^ • ^ 



\-.. 



'f 






^. 






C^ 



..^ 












r^ 


> 


^ A 


'n^. 


o< 


'•,, 






N° 








°^ 






/ 


:' 






'^ 










0^ 




W- 




/ 




'" -, 
















■■ k'-'* 


°^ 




x^ 


% 


"■^^ 












o 





/.K-.-T^^^,',. '^ 






-ov^ 



^*''" 

,/.:,^",:.:\ 



V 






'^^ 



0-^" / 




.s^; 



.0 



A"- , o " o 






